Myanmar (Burma)

Overview
Irrawaddy Faces Project
Humanitarian Medical Aid
Myitkyina Schools
Rural Electrification

Cambodia

Overview
Vocational Education & Microfinance
Forest & Cultural Site
Rehabilitation

Vocational Education & Microfinance

Ban Bung Village, Stung Treng Province & Ban Fan Village, Rattanakiri Province

Ban Bung lies on the lower reaches of the Sesan River (see also Forest and Cultural Rehabilitation.)  Ban Fan Village lies upriver in Voen Sai District, a jump-off point for Virachay National Park, one of the most important protected areas in Southeast Asia.
The forest and river support an ethnically diverse population that includes Lao, Vietnamese, Cambodian, upland minorities and a unique Chinese community that has existed here unassimilated for almost a century.  Formerly protected by its wild remoteness, excessive deforestation by foreign commercial loggers over the past decade has devastated the environment outside the park and left little behind to sustain local livelihoods.    

In cooperation with the villagers of Ban Bung and Ban Fan, BSSPI is supporting vocational training coupled with micro-finance to enhance local capacity for alternative livelihoods.  We will build a locally sustainable knowledge base through train-the-trainer curricula on small livestock and poultry husbandry, sustainable gardening, water purification and other topics to include developing a simple business plan.   

The goal is to create new skill sets that will encourage the development of viable local business opportunities appropriate to environmental limits.  In parallel, a BSSPI officer will work with the local community to address the limited access to credit, which prevents villagers from advancing their entrepreneurial spirit and promoting sustainable livelihoods.  There are limited financial institutions in Cambodia that offer financial services to the poor without substantial collateral.  This forces the poor to borrow from local moneylenders, who often charge extraordinarily high interest rates.  To address this need, BSSPI’s program seeks to organize a Village Bank Model microfinance cooperative to introduce credit, savings, and micro-capital to community-based and local groups in these two remote, underserved villages.  Graduates of the voc-tech courses and other entrepreneurs will have access to microcredit to launch new and alternative enterprises, strengthening local business development.  This project enhances local organizational capacity and creates income earning opportunities for women and poor families while diminishing the imperative to harvest products from an already overburdened environment.